Voyage
to the Bottom
of the
Sea--
Octo Attack!
Many of the stories recounted in
L.B. Abbott's book, Special Effects--Wire, Tape and Rubber Band Style
are illuminating and amusing. One such is the
description of how one of the movie's most memorable effects sequences was
created--the giant octopus attack. As Abbott wrote, "The reason for
using a four foot model of the Seaview for shooting the octopus attack was
that the only octopi available at the time were just slightly larger than
one's hand and the four foot model made the octopus appear
huge."
The scene was shot in a tank about eight
by four by four feet set up on a stage. This special
set-up was used because the water had to be cooled and salinated to make
the octopus feel at home and it was impossible to create these conditions
in Fox's larger Sersen Lake.
Abbott recounts, "Before each take, the handler would place the octopus we were going to use in a large tub and tease it until it expended its supply of ink. The handler would then very slowly and carefully place the octopus on the nose of the sub, which was being held by its tail by an effects man standing in the tank just off-screen. |
"Obviously, the octopus would not get on the submarine's nose on its own volition. When it seemed attached to the sub, the handler would make an exit very slowly . . . Often the octopus would fall of the sub before we had any usable footage and the handler would retrieve it in a net and the procedure would be repeated." |
After a long day of shooting involving many different octopi, the needed footage was in the can. For the shot of the octopus attacking the sub, they used what would otherwise have been a throw-away shot of the octopus falling off Seaview's nose printed in reverse, so the creature seemed, very realistically to be attacking the sub. The effect of the electrical charge was animated and composited optically. |
"There were some points-of-view
shots," Abbott concludes, "of the tentacles fastened to the nose ports as
seen from inside the sub. They were a matte composite of an octopus
shot from outside a small tank." Of course, much of the movie footage, shot with more budget and under greater control than was possible for the series in general, wound up being reused on the TV show in order to extend the budget--and why not? It was too cool not to reuse. |
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